


a man said to the universe

by ursahelianthus



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Written before the movie, a little sadness and silliness, and imagination, dealing with Carol’s death, ignore the movie, with soup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursahelianthus/pseuds/ursahelianthus
Summary: Amidst the chaos of the emotional, historical, and megalomaniacal fallout from Carol’s death, Lucy hadn’t thought to expect the mundane.





	a man said to the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tsuuriki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuuriki/gifts).



> My dear Tsuuriki: I present to you a regrettably un-festive Secret Santa gift, nonetheless written from the heart and featuring an alive Garcia Flynn, who is seasonally appropriate all year round.
> 
> Title comes from a poem by the same name by Stephen Crane:
> 
> A man said to the universe:  
> “Sir, I exist!”  
> “However,” replied the universe,  
> “The fact has not created in me  
> A sense of obligation.”

Amidst the chaos of the emotional, historical, and megalomaniacal fallout from Carol’s death, Lucy hadn’t thought to expect the mundane. 

Midnight on the fifth day after Chinatown, and she’s curled up under the covers scrolling on her phone, the little screen held eight inches from her face and glowing too brightly in the darkened room. An email from Stanford pops up in her personal inbox from a history professor whose name she doesn’t recognize: Carol has missed four committee meetings and a thesis defense, and does Lucy know if mother is all right or even better, how to get in contact with her?

Oh. Hmm.

Lucy taps out a quick response and copies the department chair. _My mother is dead. Also, I’m not coming back after this sabbatical. Sincerely, Lucy Preston, PhD._

She relishes the folly of ending her academic career on a whim for a beat longer, hits send, and gets up to find Flynn. 

He hasn’t come to bed before 3 AM the past few nights, and even then she can hear him shifting on his own narrow cot just a few feet away, unable to get comfortable with the healing gunshot wound. Like the stubborn ass he is, he refused to take more painkillers after the first forty-eight hours, and so only yields to exhaustion around sunrise. 

Yesterday she woke early from a nightmare and caught him dreaming in the gray morning light, flinching as he fought battles in his sleep. She gave in to an impulse to push his sweaty hair off his forehead, loath to wake him from the only sleep cycle he would get that night, and watched in faint amazement as his brow smoothed and his body settled under her touch. 

Tonight she comes up on Flynn sitting at a kitchen table, a trained killer glowering at a bowl of chicken noodle soup, dark circles under his sunken eyes. He hasn’t finished a meal in days, either. He’s scowling as if his appetite can be brought back through sheer willpower; she’s afraid he’s making himself even more sick and stressed. 

Flynn hears her coming and raises his head, a flash of worry momentarily replacing the scowl until he reads the ease in her approach. Everything’s fine, everyone’s safe. She walks around to his side and cards a hand through his hair, cupping the back of his head, sliding her hand down his neck as he tips his head to look up at her. She presses her palm to the base of his neck, deep pressure, and he sighs in response as his shoulders shiver and drop.

When he opens his eyes again, he’s a little sharper. He doesn’t really move, but Lucy can feel the way he orients to her, waiting on her signal.

“I quit my job,” she says neutrally. She pulls out the closest chair and sits with her knees touching his under the table, and that grounds her, just a little. 

Flynn looks impressed. “We’re allowed to quit?”

“My teaching job, Flynn. Stanford sent an email wondering where my mother was, and I told them she’s dead and I quit.”

“I see.”

“Also I realized I need to do all those things people do when someone dies. Call the lawyer, find the will, see if my mom left instructions or left anything to me in this timeline. Find out what to do to a 401k. Pay the bills, stop the mail, cancel the health insurance. Sell the house, ‘cause I am definitely never living there again.”

Now she’s on a roll. Flynn lets her ramble and get it all out, his expression thoughtful and…scheming? 

“Transfer the title on the car to myself if I can? You know, for if we make it out of this alive. And somehow file a death certificate with no proof that she’s even dead because her body is in 1888. Guess we can’t hold a funeral. Too bad, we could really use the sympathy casseroles.” Lucy groans. “God, I sound awful. But y’know, maybe she left me a safe deposit box with blood diamonds and nuclear launch codes.”

Flynn appears torn between being properly sympathetic and outright laughing, so she gives him permission with a roll of her eyes and a self-deprecating smile. Being orphaned has really brought out a penchant for gallows humor. 

Flynn leans forward to rest an elbow on the table, pressing his fingers to his mouth to stifle a grin. “So, how are we going to accomplish all this from inside the bunker?”

“We?”

He shrugs as if it’s obvious. He’s never leaving her side again.

Well then. “I haven’t really gotten that far yet.” 

Flynn perks up. “I vote field trip. Normally I’d offer to drive, but-” he gestures at the sling.

Lucy raises one elegant, disbelieving eyebrow. “Sure, Flynn, I’ll just break out of here, hotwire the Fed-mobile, and drive us both in broad daylight to my dead mother’s house in Old Palo Alto, because you’re not a wanted terrorist, I haven’t got a price on my head, and the place definitely isn’t a literal Ritten-house. It probably has Rittenbugs all over it. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was booby-trapped.”

“Oh come on,” Flynn says brightly, “we can only open a safe deposit box in person.”

“That’s probably booby-trapped too.”

“Not to worry, I happen to be excellent at disarming traps.”

“Are you now.”

“Yep. They don’t teach that at Stanford?”

Lucy laughs and Flynn flashes a real smile and for a second it’s so, so good to see him again. 

Lucy relaxes into her chair, playing with the edge of her robe as she thinks. “I guess what I actually have to do is tell Denise.”

“And let her have all the fun?” Flynn feigns being put-upon. 

“How about we let the DHS host the estate sale and donate the proceeds to something Rittenhouse would hate.”

“ACLU,” Flynn bids.

“SPLC,” Lucy counters. 

“PETA.”

“GLAAD.”

Flynn frowns in confusion. “You are?”

“Hah! I will be when this is over,” Lucy says with a wry smile. 

Now Flynn does look sympathetic. “Isn’t there anything you want to save?” he asks gently.

Lucy has to think that one over. Is there? She’s been living in the bunker for months without any of her personal items. Didn’t really have time to take anything when she was being kidnapped. 

She has a stray thought that the practicalities of dealing with Carol’s death are oddly disconnected from the pain of losing her mother. Or more accurately, losing the possibility of ever getting her real mother back. The version who loved Henry Wallace and never let on about being the heir to an evil cult and, she supposed, never really existed. 

Fingertips on her wrist. “Lucy?” 

Flynn, holding back worry, barely.

“I don’t think so,” she says slowly, refocusing on him. “The things I miss – pictures with Amy and my dad, the stupid gifts we used to make each other – they don’t exist anymore. Even all of my clothes and furniture are different. Similar style, just – not the ones I used to have.” 

“Lucy. I- I never- I’m sorry.” Flynn ducks his head, looking out from under his lashes with those wide sorrowful eyes that pin her to the spot like they always have. Like they always do. 

Lucy’s trapped a moment longer, and then she breaks free and tips forward onto the table, laying her head in her arms. She’s suddenly very, very tired. “You didn’t know.” 

“Doesn’t make it all right.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Her entire family is gone. But she’s somehow living with it, just as he is. 

Her stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly, and a hysterical giggle bubbles out of her, because if she didn’t laugh, she’d cry. 

Flynn doesn’t react, but going completely still is what gives him away. She hears the question as clearly as if he’d shouted it – he wants to know when she last ate a proper meal. 

“Pot, kettle,” she grumbles, sitting up. “Kettle, pot.”

“Make you a deal…” Flynn offers, trying to lighten the mood. He’ll finish his bowl of soup if she has one too. 

There’s nothing for it but to accept. And Lucy’s grateful, she is, but this trick of making a pact to stay nourished makes her intolerably sad in ways she just can’t examine too closely right now. Truth is, without Flynn she would have withdrawn and let herself waste away long before now. She’s begun to think the fear of the other disappearing is the only thing keeping either of them here, alive. 

Flynn moves to get up, but Lucy tells him to sit. She takes his now-cold soup and dumps it back into the pot, adds another portion for herself, and retrieves a second bowl and spoon. He gets up anyway, leaning on the counter with her as they wait for their dinner to reheat, and she feels his warmth radiating through her thin sleeping clothes. 

For the space of a few minutes they stand together, a muted tableau of mourning. And then, “Lucy?” Flynn says quietly. She turns her head to face him. “I’m sorry about your mother.” 

She draws in a breath and lets it out on a long exhale. Nods. “Me too.”


End file.
